to achieve the mechanistically challenging decarboxylation. Capture of the extremely instable PA-CoA intermediate is accomplished by a massive overproduction of phthaloyl-CoA decarboxylase and a balanced production of PA-CoA forming/decarboxylating enzymes . The strategy of anaerobic phthalate degradation probably represents a snapshot of an ongoing evolution of a xenobiotic degradation pathway via a short-lived reaction intermediate.

Bolotnik, T.A., Timchenko, Y.V., Plyushchenko, I.V., Levkina, V.V., Pirogov, A.V., Smolenkov, A.D., Popik, M.V., Shpigun, O.A., 2019. Use of chemometric methods of data analysis for the identification and typification of petroleum and petroleum products. Journal of Analytical Chemistry 74, 1336-1340.

https://doi.org/10.1134/S1061934819130045 A method for identifying straits of rocket kerosene (RG-1 and T-1 brands) and various types of hydrocarbon fuels (aviation fuel TC-1 and diesel fuel) in soil has been developed. The proposed version of identification is based on the preliminary separation of the main components by gas chromatography and their mass spectrometric detection followed by the processing of the data obtained by chemometric methods of analysis (principal component analysis and projection on latent structures with discriminant analysis) using the 'MZmineZ,' 'iMet - Q,' and 'MetaboAnalyst' software. A possibility of the application of the developed approach to the typification of saturated oil fractions of different origin is illustrated.

Bomba, R., Rout, S.K., Bütikofer, M., Kwiatkowski, W., Riek, R., Greenwald, J., 2019. Carbonyl sulfide as a prebiotic activation agent for stereo- and sequence-selective, amyloid-templated peptide elongation. Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres 49, 213-224.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11084-019-09586-5 Prebiotic chemical replication is a commonly assumed precursor to and prerequisite for life and as such is the one of the goals of our research. We have previously reported on the role that short peptide amyloids could have played in a template-based chemical elongation. Here we take a step closer to the goal by reproducing amyloid- templated peptide elongation with carbonyl sulfide (COS) in place of the less-prebiotically relevant carbonyldiimidazole (CDI) used in the earlier study. Our investigation shows that the sequence-selectivity and stereoselectivity of the amyloid-templated reaction is similar for both activation chemistries. Notably, the amyloid protects the peptides from some of the side-reactions that take place with the COS-activation.

Bonneville, S., Delpomdor, F., Préat, A., Chevalier, C., Araki, T., Kazemian, M., Steele, A., Schreiber, A., Wirth, R., Benning, L.G., 2020. Molecular identification of fungi microfossils in a Neoproterozoic shale rock. Science Advances 6, eaax7599.

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/4/eaax7599.abstract Precambrian fossils of fungi are sparse, and the knowledge of their early evolution and the role they played in the colonization of land surface are limited. Here, we report the discovery of fungi fossils in a 810 to 715 million year old dolomitic shale from the Mbuji-Mayi Supergroup, Democratic Republic of Congo. Syngenetically preserved in a transitional, subaerially exposed paleoenvironment, these carbonaceous filaments of ~5 μm in width exhibit low -frequency septation (pseudosepta) and high-angle branching that can form dense interconnected mycelium-like structures. Using an array of microscopic (SEM, TEM, and confocal laser scanning fluorescence microscopy) and spectroscopic techniques (Raman, FTIR, and XANES), we demonstrated the presence of vestigial chitin in these fossil filaments and document the eukaryotic nature of their precursor. Based on those combined evidences, these fossil filaments and mycelium-like structures are identified as remnants of fungal networks and represent the oldest, molecularly identified remains of Fungi.

Boonchai, N., Suteethorn, S., Sereeprasirt, W., Suriyonghanphong, C., Amiot, R., Cuny, G., Legrand, J., Thévenard, Xenoxylon F., Philippe, M., 2020. , a boreal fossil wood in the Mesozoic redbeds of Southeast Asia: Potential for